r whose going down they were waiting with an immobility as tranquil
as the waters themselves! What marvelous incompetency,--or what infinite
patience! He knew, of course, their expected compensation in this
"ground sluicing" at Nature's own hand; the long rifts in the banks of
the creek which so often showed "the color" in the sparkling scales of
river gold disclosed by the action of the water; the heaps of reddish
mud left after its subsidence around the walls of the cabins,--a deposit
that often contained a treasure a dozen times more valuable than the
cabin itself! And then he heard behind him a laugh, a short and panting
breath, and turning, beheld a young woman running towards him.

In his first astounded sight of her, in her limp nankeen sunbonnet,
thrown back from her head by the impetus of her flight, he saw only too
much hair, two much white teeth, too much eye-flash, and, above
all,--as it appeared to him,--too much confidence in the power of these
qualities. Even as she ran, it seemed to him that she was pulling down
ostentatiously the rolled-up sleeves of her pink calico gown over her
shapely arms. I am inclined to think that the young gentleman's temper
was at fault, and his conclusion hasty; a calmer observer would have
detected nothing of this in her frankly cheerful voice. Nevertheless,
her evident pleasure in the meeting seemed to him only obtrusive
coquetry.

"Lordy! I reckoned to git here afore you'd get through fixin' up, and in
time to do a little prinkin' myself, and here you're out already." She
laughed, glancing at his clean shirt and damp hair. "But all the same,
we kin have a talk, and you kin tell me all the news afore the other
wimmen get up here. It's a coon's age since I was at Sacramento and
saw anybody or anything." She stopped and, instinctively detecting some
vague reticence in the man before her, said, still laughing, "You're Mr.
Hemmingway, ain't you?"

Hemmingway took off his hat quickly, with a slight start at his
forgetfulness. "I beg your pardon; yes, certainly."

"Aunty Stanton thought it was 'Hummingbird,'" said the girl, with a
laugh, "but I reckoned not. I'm Jinney Jules, you know; folks call me
'J. J.' It wouldn't do for a Hummingbird and a Jay Jay to be in the same
camp, would it? It would be just TOO funny!"

Hemmingway did not find the humor of this so singularly exhaustive, but
he was already beginning to be ashamed of his attitude towards her. "I'm
very sorry to be